Warning On Office 2007 "Try-Before-You-Buy" 380
walterbyrd writes with a warning: "Microsoft is pushing Office 2007 with 'try-before-you-buy.' Please don't let your friends and relatives install Microsoft 'trial' software. When Microsoft tells you 'try-before-you-buy,' the 'buy' part is not meant to be an option. Once you 'try' a Microsoft 'upgrade' you can not easily go back, because your files will be replaced by new versions that you need the new software to read." The ChannelRegister article also notes how Microsoft's push goes against the grain of the consumer revolt against "crapware." Read on for an account of walterbyrd's experience with a previous Microsoft trial upgrade.
I remember when my brother-in-law decided to try Office-2003. It was a complete mess. I didn't think I'd ever get it fixed. Here is the story:
Office-2003 installed over his Office-2000. His Outlook-2000 email was reformatted to the new-and-improved Outlook-2003. And Outlook-2003 format is incompatible with everything except Outlook-2003. So when his trial period was over, he could no longer access his email — unless he wanted to buy Office-2003.
Of course, I could not fully remove the "trial" version of Office-2003. Once Office-2003 has been installed, it can not overwritten with an earlier version of Office. Also, you cannot remove Office-2003 and re-install Office-2000, unless you know how to hack the registry. And you can not easily install Office-2000 and Office-2003 on the same PC.
What I eventually did to correct the situation:
- Signed up for my own trial version of Office-2003
- Used my trial version to import my brother-in-law's email file
- Saved my brother-in-law's email in another format
- Backed up his data
- Wiped his HDD
- Restored everything
In fairness, I have not used the trial version of Office-2007. But, after my experience with the trial version of Office-2003, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Please make sure your friends don't touch it either.
prompt? (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't even try Office 07! (Score:5, Insightful)
How, then, is this even a story? The submitter warns of the impending danger of the 07 trial, goes over his experiences with the 03 trial, and then admits he hasn't even tried the 07 trial.
A friend of mine bought a Toshiba Satellite with vista from Best Buy, and it came preinstalled with the Office 2007 trial. He used it for a week. He then uninstalled the 2007 trial via the control panel, installed his retail license of 2003 (he was not a fan of the ribbon...), and imported his files without any compatibility issues, including his entire Outlook file, contacts, email, everything.
This whole story is FUD. (Score:5, Insightful)
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, this scare-tactic post amounts to someone asserting that something bad happened in the past, and might, possibly, maybe, could happen in the future.
Wow, thanks for the information, I never would have thought of that on my own.
(Furthermore, does any company that uses trial-ware want you to do anything besides buy the software? Game companies use demos all of the time, AND THEY DON"T WANT YOU TO CONSIDER BUYING THE GAME TO BE OPTIONAL EITHER. But, because this is and MS story on Slashdot, we just have to bash them for every perfectly normal thing that they do.)
Pathetic.
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever hear of backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
I also have both Outlook 2000 and 2003 clients in an Exchange environment and there is no problem with individual users using either version. The only real source of grief are occasional MINOR formatting hiccups when files are opened with different versions and documents that reference a database for merging purposes, but these are merely annoyances, not critical failures.
Scare Tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
full of lies and half-truths (Score:1, Insightful)
Office-2003 installed over his Office-2000. His Outlook-2000 email was reformatted to the new-and-improved Outlook-2003. And Outlook-2003 format is incompatible with everything except Outlook-2003.
Not true. Outlook 2003 can use the exact same
Of course, I could not fully remove the "trial" version of Office-2003. Once Office-2003 has been installed, it can not overwritten with an earlier version of Office. Also, you cannot remove Office-2003 and re-install Office-2000, unless you know how to hack the registry.
Not true at all. Just go to add/remove programs and uninstall your trial software, then reinstall your old software. If you can't uninstall software, then your PC is very messed up, which has nothing to do with outlook.
And you can not easily install Office-2000 and Office-2003 on the same PC.
Also not true. You cannot have multiple versions of outlook on the same PC, but the rest of office is easy - just install into a different directory. The default for office 2003 installs is to remove office 2000, but you have an easy choice during installation to keep your existing software and install 2003 to a new directory.
The reason for multiple versions of outlook is that the exchange connectivity is very different in outlook, and you can't have both
Not easy. Re:It's also not hard to tell (Score:3, Insightful)
So you can choose if you want the backward compatible version or the new version, and it is easy to know what you chose. Currently we have a some Office 2007 at work but mostly Office 2003. No problems thus far, as the 2007 people know to keep using the old formats and everyone is happy.
The menu for types is confusing and makes interchange a PITA. There are three options, "default", "Office97-2003" [ask-leo.com] and "other". If this version is like all of the rest, conversion is one way - in but not out - and 97-2003 will be a mess. The other formats [ask-leo.com] are way too confusing for the average user with multiple types defined for the same version of word processor name. Once you get past all of that, you have Vista's default behavior of hiding file extensions to keep you from knowing which file is what.
All of this confusion and complexity has one aim: to make sure people buy a new M$ word processor every few years. The file formats change around to keep other programs from being able to use them. The new formats themselves are used to force others to buy Word. This routine has worked several times.
The only real question is how many times can M$ pull the old switcheroo before people revolt. It's such a transparent rip off.
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think that something as important as a "standard" document format wouldn't change enough to become incompatible every 1-4 years.
Re:Ever hear of backups? (Score:4, Insightful)
More to the point, why upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:2, Insightful)
i bet the first open office release isn't capable of opening the latest? oh the HORROR! evil open office lets bash them!
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:3, Insightful)
As somebody who has done consumer level tech support, I NEVER make these assumptions, and neither should Microsoft. I would (like) to think that Microsoft would set the default save file method to be that of the previous Office Suite installed. It would make sense for trial software. Or at the least have a warning for the naive user that there newly saved files are not backward compatible. A simple patch could be added if Office 2007 was purchased. This seems to be an oversight at the least, and a marketing faux pas at the most.
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you open an XHTML 1.0 web page designed now in an HTML 3.2 browser from 1997 (10 years ago)? Yes, you usually can.
Any "standard" document format should never become unreadable by old software.
I'm not a user of OpenOffice, so I won't comment on that. But I've never had a problem opening TXT or RTF or HTML or PDF. I look forward to the day when the most common rich word processing format is also the most compatible.
Re:The entire "story" is FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:1, Insightful)
Which is exactly the way it was with the Office 2003 trial and the Office 2007 trial. What the submitter went through was an odyssey of incompetence. I used both trial versions and in both cases i went back to the previous version. Had no problem. (Except that i think Office 2007 sucks.)
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems with Windows threads, folks like you seem to demand every bit of user responsibility must be stripped before it has a chance at being good, but then the restraint placed by the lack of responsibility would just be a new reason to complain.
As noted in the above posts, most users do not have a problem like these two boobs, since it's common sense that Microsoft will have updated their document formants. It's a given.
Re:don't buy it anway, its crapware (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect they would have dropped PowerPoint entirely, and had Word rather akin to Notepad.
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps I am biased by my experiences with professional tech support and with helping friends and family, but even some people I went to school with weren't the keenest. As I've said in a later post, if something can go wrong it will. I really believe this will (at the least) inconvenience a lot of people. I know on Slashdot people take there computer literacy for granted, but there are people who have used computers for well over a decade who don't know the simplest things that we may take for granted. When you say "most users do not have a problem like these two boobs", then I would need to see some stats. Perhaps not most, but I think it would be enough. And from an engeneering standpoint I wouldn't think of a customer that has problems with my software as being a "boob".
There are some assumptions that you seem to have about me. I will just clarify some things:
1) I am NOT in favour of over-engineering software.
2) I am NOT anti-Microsoft (I have defended M$ in the past on Slashdot)
3) I don't bitch or complain (well sometimes I can be a bit flamboyant), but I don't say things just to be an asshat.
That said, I don't think making trial software (that is already limited in functionality) have a user-friendly compatibility interface is a bad idea.
Enough FUD - the documentation is available - (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:3, Insightful)
There's so many mistakes there it's hard to know where to begin (and I'm not talking about the grammar).
Basically, you're begging this question: "Why isn't
PS: 'Encoded formats' can also be backwards/forwards compatible(!)
Re:prompt? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Oh, there is a trial of the new Office available? Wow, how generous from Microsoft, let's install it."
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow would you look at that... you don't actually have to upgrade in order to open new Office files! Just another case of Microsoft forcing people to not necessarily upgrade!
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:3, Insightful)
You're adding a twist to the subject at hand:
There's the software install/deinstall.
The other is user files.
Let's put the user files aside for now.
If you install software, shouldn't it deinstall itself (completely)?
There are two exceptions: dependencies and things which affect the OS or OS-related processes; i.e.,things which are "bad thing" for the machine's health and function.
Something like Office, regardless of the version, should be able to remove all software and related changes (e.g., the registry). If there are extraneous files which are unrelated, then the user should be prompted for a decision or leave them in place (by default). Think of it like the saying about the wilderness: take only pictures, leave only footprints. Microsoft is leaving more than footprints. A lot of registry clutter is Microsoft's equivalent of your dog having a date with the poop fairy in a well-trafficked area which you find in the middle of the night if you don't turn the lights on.
If your mother asks you if you cleaned off your shoes before you get beyond the door, doesn't she expect you to clean up after yourself? If you see dear ole Mom walking in without the same requirement, that's like MS deinstalls.
Operating System files are another story.
But
Unfortunately, Microsoft has always had a policy of "do as we say, not as we do". To get certification in the past, you'd have to really toe the line, even when MS ware didn't.
The other issue I didn't address yet is the user files. That's kind of a toss-up. Should a software vendor be responsible for every previous format older versions were compatible with?
I think that's a bit too much. I can see progressions from version to version to be acceptable.
The only time things should break between two versions is if something is evolutionary|revolutionary in magnitude. Something people would pay twice the price because it's so obviously incredible. Something that they wouldn't need Huey, Dewey and Louie (Marketing, PR, and Sales) for.
As I've noted with another article - it sucks when they start making things incompatible across versions because they can't convince people to upgrade old software without a major investment.
And the EULA basically states you don't own the product. You're just renting it.
Anything (MS) which doesn't currently die within a year of installation (to force an upgrade) will do so before long. Many software vendors currently do this.
Personally, I think they've lost the creative spark and have to require people to update because they can't come up with something new.
In my mainframe days, you could install and leave it be until you want to upgrade. No time bombs, no rental. Heck, IBM at least provided file formats and left exits in place so you could make plenty of your own features in useful places. I think there were even sections of vital code which was provided on microfiche. It's been a little over fifteen years. It makes me wish Microsoft was a bit gentler about what they do to our machines than IBM did with the boat anchors. The only things which required a reboot was OS-critical stuff. Everything else was pretty much a hot install & use.
You can install them both - but backup first! (Score:3, Insightful)
Should not be trialing s/w on your production system anyway IMHO.
If you must, backup everything first, and just keep a copy of your email messages on the server. If you have to downgrade afterwards, restore your old outlook *.pst files and re-download the new mails. You'll not get the 'sent' mails, tho..
Slashdot resorts to making crap up? (Score:5, Insightful)
What in the hell is happening to this site. Once a good source of fairly trusted information or stories from around the net and now we are finding duplicates of stories everyday, biased submitter comments that don't even understand the articles they are posting and NOW we get opinion on subjects that are complete incompetence or flat out lies.
How can someone talk about using 2007 Office when they admit they never used it?
How can we trust an article where the user is SO STUPID that they reinstalled Office to import data when the software installed ALREADY does this automatically if they would just have freaking looked at the options instead of assuming MS is evil and forcing users to into their software.
This isn't even about MS or Office or Office 2007. This is about an really incompetent computer user proporting themselves as an 'expert' and yet having less knowledge than an average user in the same circumstances.
Do you think MS would bait people with a new version of Office and then want to pay for 'free' support calls to get the users back to their original versions? Just from a $$ standpoint, this would be STUPID for MS to do, and why this DOES NOT happen as the submitted story suggests.
Slashdot, this is now to the point where your main articles are making up crap just to try to push the anti-MS FUD.
So what insane
"Don't install evil Vista because my 3yr old ate keys off the keyboard"
"Don't use evil Windows Server, when I installed NT 3.51 Server my audio in doom stopped working"
"Stay away from MS, I drove by their headquarters and bigfoot attacked my car and raped me"
"I am too stupid to breathe most of the time, but after installing Vista, I forgot how to breathe altogether"
"MS forces evil DRM on me in Vista because it has something called protect processes that secures parts of the OS from other processes, and even though it wasn't designed for DRM, idiots like me see it as DRM because we are too f**king stupid to know what we are talking about"
Geesh
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't find it complicated to replace the breaks, oil, filters, and serpentine belt on my car, but I know plenty of "smart" people who think that you have to take the car to the dealer to get this done.
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:2, Insightful)
People are quick to bitch about Microsoft's actions, but what the hell is a non-tech-savvy user doing installing a trial of Office 2007 anyway ? If they already have 2000 or 2003 preinstalled on their system, they should stick with that. The compatibility readers are available for free, as they've always been since Office 95! If a person doesn't know that, and doesn't think of backing up their important files on a regular basis, or AT THE VERY LEAST backing up before replacing a major piece of software, welllll... too bad so sad, they should have gotten someone qualified to do it for them. We techs didn't go to school, read every technical journal known to man, and spend man-years practicing our fine art for NOTHING, so why does the average joe assume he can do everything we do ?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:3, Insightful)
The bashing is deserved, and is for the questionable practices of commercial software vendors, of which MS is only one. What looks senseless to us is your blind support of MS.
You do know of the many many things MS and others have done? For just MS, I'm talking about things like Windows Genuine Advantage, threatening to sue Linux users over 235 alleged patent violations, threatening flash memory and digital camera markets with patents on the ancient FAT file system, the "defective by design" DRM stuff included in Vista, and of course the subject of this story, forced upgrades. Apparently you don't understand that these things are bad? That MS didn't have to do any of that to survive, and in fact may have hurt by harming their reputation? Take WGA, for instance. MS did not tell people what WGA really was, just that it was critical for security. They lied. And then, WGA worked poorly, too often flagging legit installations of Windows as pirated, and non legit ones as legit.
You believe new features can't be added without breaking old features? You really believe that? Take it from us, that's NOT true. English hasn't been hopelessly broken by all the new words and concepts introduced for the Information Age. ASCII still works just as well as it did back in the 1970s. And, btw, even ASCII supports some formatting.
MS didn't have to change existing files to new incompatible formats in such a sly manner. Users should not have to wade through FUD about losing formatting. Users should not be bothered with such questions about "new formats", popped up at a critical moments, about an issue both confusing and unimportant. What's a user to do, spend 15 minutes attempting to read up on exactly what's involved in switching to a new format, when a just completed revision is hovering at the edge of oblivion by power failure, OS crash, or application crash because it hasn't yet been saved? And if a user does try to find out what it means, they soon get lost in a maze of deliberately obtuse documentation. We should be excused for thinking that MS doesn't want anyone to know exactly what value a new format adds and that there isn't any significant new value. It's just plain irresponsible of any company to treat its customers so shabbily.
Re:M. Webster's Explains (Score:1, Insightful)
Take a non-trivial document saved as
Wait. It'll come.
Still waiting? Make yourself some coffee, it'll take a while. Oh, and don't even think about trying to browse the web or something while it's converting.
Got there yet? Good. Now, compare what Office 2003 shows you with the PDF. Okay - except for the missing footer, and the table layout is screwed up, and is that supposed to be a "£"?
Well, you get the idea. This is my experience (and I've been using both Office 2007 and 2003, in parallel, for a couple of months now).
So don't give me that "you don't have to upgrade" bullplop. This is Microsoft guerrilla marketing at its worst, and it deserves all the bad press we can give it.